All Questions
71
votes
6answers
3k views
How is it that taking a break from a problem sometimes allows you to figure out the answer?
As a computer programmer, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon: If I am stuck on a particular problem in my work, often if I stop thinking about the problem and do something else, the answer will ...
37
votes
4answers
3k views
Why do humans have sex in private?
Human couples usually have sex in private, hidden not only from predators, but also - other humans. It is unlike behavior of most species, including our relatives: bonobos, chimpanzees and gorillas.
...
33
votes
3answers
2k views
Does writing something down help memorize it?
This is a question inspired by this recent question on the Chinese Language & Usage website.
Someone asked why they needed to learn how to write Chinese characters, since today we mostly use ...
26
votes
1answer
4k views
Is leg jiggling a focus aid?
This is slightly left-field, but I am interested in the Cognitive Science implications of this question: Many people, myself included, are "leg jigglers", meaning we often sit jiggling or bouncing a ...
24
votes
1answer
907 views
By learning to read and write upside down, what did I do to myself?
If you've ever read Encyclopedia Brown books, you'll be familiar with the backwards writing in the back of the book that explains the solution to the case.
When I was in my mid-late teens (I don't ...
24
votes
1answer
681 views
Does caffeine improve performance for habituated consumers?
I've seen a fair few studies over the while that suggest caffeine increases arousal in the short term and that for some tasks, this will also increase performance (there's a few citations here).
...
23
votes
2answers
295 views
Do students exhibit rational behavior in determining study time?
While I teach some economics classes, I must admit to near complete ignorance on the optimization processes students undertake when studying. We often say that the "best" students are those who earn ...
22
votes
2answers
2k views
Is Golden Ratio's association with perceived beauty a myth?
Many people advocate using the Golden Ratio in design (e.g. logo design).
Is the Golden Ratio's purported aesthetic appeal supported by scientific evidence?
22
votes
5answers
450 views
Online data repository of research in the cognitive sciences
Sharing data is an important part of science (e.g., see APA discussion). It's also often useful to be able to have access to datasets when teaching students how to analyse data in the cognitive ...
21
votes
4answers
554 views
Is The magical number 7 still valid?
George A. Miller published "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" in 1956 and is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology. It ...
20
votes
1answer
297 views
The effects of bilingualism on colour perception
Peltola et al. (2012) showed that there are two types of bilinguals.
Balanced bilinguals mix their two languages and are effected by linguistic categories from both.
Dominant bilinguals seem to ...
19
votes
2answers
426 views
Can critical thinking be taught?
Critical thinking is central to the scientific method and believed to be essential to a successful democracy. Recently, the 2012 Texas Republican platform voiced the party's opposition to the teaching ...
18
votes
1answer
934 views
What makes people easily subscribe to pseudoscientific theories?
There are many theories/disciplines that have been categorized as Pseudoscience in the Scientific community.
The list includes many things that are regularly even quoted in media like Graphology, ...
17
votes
5answers
652 views
Why do higher incentives lead to lower performance for non-rudimentary tasks?
I have watched a number of times this excellent video where Dan Pink discusses the science of motivation. The video states that the higher incentives, the lower performance for non-rudimentary (not ...
17
votes
3answers
910 views
What are some of the drawbacks to probabilistic models of cognition?
Probabilistic approaches to modelling cognition are increasing in popularity and being encouraged within the field (Chater, Tanenbaum, & Yuille, 2006).
What are some of the arguments against or ...
17
votes
3answers
166 views
Why does the human visual system produce a bright patch after staring at a bright light source and looking away?
If a person looks at a bright light source, such as a light bulb or perhaps the sun for a period of time, and then looks away and closes their eyes, they typically see a bright patch in the shape of ...
17
votes
3answers
3k views
Does evidence support Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs (shown below) is a popular concept and is often taught in basic psychology courses, and often less objectively taught in Business and Marketing courses.
A common problem ...
17
votes
2answers
275 views
Performance of a group solving a cognitive task: How does it scale?
Some intellectual, cognitive and perceptual tasks can be solved collaboratively. It is common knowledge that group performance is better than that of each single individual due to exchange of ...
17
votes
2answers
445 views
Are autonomy, mastery, and purpose the most important motivators?
I've watched the amazing TED talk where Daniel Pink lays out the contrarian notion that greater extrinsic motivators are unimportant (and sometimes detrimental) in comparison to three intrinsic ...
17
votes
2answers
654 views
Is there evidence that listening to music can aid/hinder concentration or performance?
I, like many computer programmers, love to listen to music while I work. I have always believed that music helps me stay focused and motivated, and improves my performance on many types of tasks, ...
17
votes
2answers
896 views
Neural networks with biologically plausible accounts of neurogenesis
One of the reasons artificial neural net algorithms like cascade correlation (pdf) have been generating interest is because they start with a minimal topology (just input and output unit) and recruit ...
16
votes
8answers
1k views
How can I create computer based psychology experiments using OS X?
I've used E-prime to create computer based psychology experiments (you know, the kind where you for example show a number of pictures to the participant and record their responses to them, for example ...
16
votes
5answers
352 views
Why do we prefer visually aligned objects?
We all know visual alignment is one of the foundations of design. Everything must be aligned with everything else.
We also know that when things are aligned it is easier to process information.
My ...
16
votes
5answers
296 views
How long does it take to read X number of characters?
How does the time needed to read a sentence scale with the number of characters? Or does this time scaling depend on something more than just character count?
For example, let $X$ be the number of ...
15
votes
5answers
558 views
What are good examples of applying dynamical systems in cognitive science?
I'm a mathematics and physics student very much interested in cognitive science. Recently I've been hearing about "a new approach" in cognitive science via dynamical system theory.
What are some ...
15
votes
3answers
4k views
Why would the brain flip the images perceived by your eyes?
The following is a common scientific statement, which you don't have to google long for to find:
The eye views images upside-down in the manner of a camera lens, but
our brains reinterpret this ...
15
votes
5answers
421 views
Does learning one discipline improve performance in another discipline?
I have come across a lot of articles that suggest learning across disciplines would improve cognitive abilities. This is more often referred to as Integrative Learning. Also, nowadayas a lot of ...
15
votes
2answers
511 views
Perception of time as a function of age
For many people time seems to run faster as they get older. That is, for an old person an hour, a day or a year seems to be shorter than for a young person.
Is there any hard data for such ...
15
votes
2answers
425 views
Does language and/or culture affect an individual's cognitive capacity?
Some languages have multiple expressions to identify, address, comprehend, and interpret a single concept and/or experience.
Are limits placed on understanding and describing aspects of cognition due ...
15
votes
2answers
278 views
Have ideas of “gamification” been applied to education?
Wikipedia defines Gamification as "the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences."
Khan Academy has received attention (e.g., see this post) for incorporating ...
15
votes
1answer
425 views
Do people wake up faster with inconsistent alarm sounds?
Many people have one alarm clock sound that wakes them up every morning.
Is having this consistent sound the optimal way to wake someone up?
Or can you startle someone faster by changing to a ...
15
votes
3answers
667 views
Is the Myer Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) a reasonable scientific theory?
Background:
MBTI stands for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. It's a theory that suggests that people can be divided into 16 types, based on the way they percieve and analyse information (whether they make ...
15
votes
1answer
217 views
Do personality survey responses correlate to the success or failure of minimum wage employees?
I recently watched a friend fill out a personality survey for a minimum wage job. These surveys generally have a few dozen to as many as a couple hundred statements with which the applicant must ...
15
votes
1answer
631 views
Is there a reduction of “Brain Fog” with fewer hours of sleep?
I've heard patients who complain of "brain fog" (and fatigue) claim a reduction in "brain fog" (and more mental clarity) when they get fewer hours of sleep (usually less than 5.5 hours).
Here I'd ...
15
votes
1answer
244 views
Medium-term effects of polyphasic sleep on performance
Typical sleep patterns of one big block of 6 to 9 hours with no naps is usually referred to as monophasic sleep. A second natural sleep pattern is biphasic sleep which breaks up your sleep into two ...
15
votes
0answers
161 views
How do emotions influence the language structures we use?
What are the verbal signs of subjectivity?
I am doing research about the linguistic content of media (debates, talk-show, sport comments). It occurs that once the participant gets nervous or excited, ...
14
votes
3answers
1k views
Is the Neanderthal Theory of Autistic brain a reasonable scientific theory?
I've recently learned about The Neanderthal Theory, that explains autistic (and especially Asperger's) brain functioning as the effect of genetical similarity with Neanderthals.
The author gives a ...
14
votes
2answers
459 views
Is there a term for individuals who can “visualize” numbers and advanced mathematics?
I recently saw an episode of 60 Minutes about Jacob Barnett, a 13 year old boy who is currently attending advanced physics classes at a local university and was portrayed by the show as being a child ...
14
votes
1answer
132 views
Is there a range in time on which the mind detects correlation between events?
I've been searching for info on this but I'm usually finding unrelated information.
My question is whether there is a time range in which our mind suspects that two events are correlated.
For ...
14
votes
1answer
409 views
Is there experimental support for John Perry's “Theory of Structured Procrastination”?
John Perry's theory of structured procrastination can be summed up as follows:
Some people are inherently predisposed to be procrastinators across a wide range of domains
Such procrastinators are ...
14
votes
1answer
383 views
What is an effective metric of complexity for an Artificial Neural Network?
After asking the question What is the most complex neural network... I realized I don't really have a good metric of "complexity" in a general sense. The simplest measure would likely be count of ...
14
votes
1answer
230 views
Have the abilities of John Lorber's patients with limited cortical mass been further evaluated in adulthood?
Short of minor lesions or infarcts, most high-functioning adults have an intact cerebral cortex. Yet, a surprising result published anecdotally in Science in 1980 caused a lot of scientists to take ...
13
votes
5answers
388 views
Can response time be incorporated into signal detection theory?
In signal detection theory, one typically uses "signal" and "no signal" responses to analyze the data (that is, the analysis is based on a discrete choice for each trial, effectively generating the ...
13
votes
5answers
589 views
What is the current “accepted” science behind dream interpretation?
I'm doing some casual reading about dream interpretation (meaning I'm reading the wikipedia entry) and the article mentions that there are several ways of thinking about dreams from a psychological ...
13
votes
2answers
260 views
How to classify and understand emotions of people using chat and text messaging lingo and emoticons?
I am looking for scholarly, peer-reviewed articles that discuss natural language processing (NLP) involving chat or text messaging lingo/acronyms and the affect of chat participants based on language ...
13
votes
2answers
308 views
Does the fusiform face area in patients with Prosopagnosia (face blindness) show lower activity under an fMRI?
I watched last night's episode of 60 minutes about Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness) and found it absolutely fascinating. They mentioned in the segment (Around 5:22 into the second part of the online ...
13
votes
3answers
893 views
Why do you sometimes write down one word while actually intending to write another?
I've caught myself writing (typing) "possible" instead of "possibly" a few times over the past few days, while I do intend to write "possibly". Only upon rereading the sentence I notice my mistake.
...
13
votes
2answers
624 views
How to reliably measure working memory capacity?
The capacity of human working memory is subject to individual differences. The number of items or chunks a person can retain in their memory may, have profound effects on a variety of other cognitive ...
13
votes
1answer
238 views
Why is white on black considered higher contrast than black on white?
While researching to answer Why are "Inverted Colors" considered an accessibility feature? I noticed the puzzling claim that "White text on a black background is a higher contrast to the opposite, so ...
13
votes
2answers
308 views
What is the threshold where actions are perceived as “instant”?
In Human Computer Interaction and User Experience there's some oft repeated rules of performance:
0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting ...
